classic toys Archives - Retro Reminiscing Video and Pictures

Flatsy Dolls: They Were Flat and That Was That!

Here’s one that really could only have come out of the late 1960s — Flatsy, the doll whose big selling point was that she was…flat!

But there was actually more thought put into these than I remembered. The dolls were made of soft vinyl with wire inside so you could bend and pose them, and some came mounted in decorative frames that could actually be hung on the wall. You could even wear some of the dolls on your clothes.

I found something interesting in a 1968 issue of Broadcasting magazine: Ideal was already planning network and major-market advertising for its new Flatsys beginning February 1, 1969. The line lasted until 1973 and grew well beyond the dolls in this commercial, with Fashion Flatsys, mini versions, Flatsyville, Candy Mountain and different playsets.

Even the company behind them has a great story. Ideal traced its beginnings to Morris and Rose Michtom, the couple associated with creating the original American Teddy bear after Theodore Roosevelt’s famous 1902 hunting incident.

And somehow that little jingle did its job — “Flatsys, Flatsys, they’re flat and that’s that” is still being remembered more than 50 years later.

Did you actually have a Flatsy, or is it the commercial and jingle you remember most?

Chatty Cathy

Chatty Cathy was one of the dolls that made kids stop and stare back in the early 1960s. Introduced by Mattel in 1960, she became famous because she did more than just sit there looking cute. Pull the string, and Chatty Cathy would actually talk.

Her voice was provided by June Foray, who also voiced Rocky the Flying Squirrel, and the doll became such a pop culture memory that she even helped inspire the creepy “Talky Tina” doll from The Twilight Zone. Decades later, GEICO used a Chatty Cathy-style parody in a commercial, proving that people still remembered the idea of the pull-string doll that just would not stop talking.

Sweet, simple, and a little bit magical, Chatty Cathy became one of the great talking toys of the era.

Did You Have A Thumbelina?

Thumbelina was introduced by Ideal in 1961 and quickly became one of those baby dolls that stood out because she actually moved. The original was a wind-up doll, and once wound, she would wiggle and squirm like a real baby, making her feel more lifelike than many dolls of the time.

Thumbelina stayed popular through the 1960s and into the 1970s, with different sizes and versions along the way. Then in 1992, the name was brought back with Tyco’s Twinkling Thumbelina, but that version was updated for its time as a battery-operated doll rather than the original wind-up style.

For many, though, the classic 1960s Thumbelina is the one they remember best — the baby doll that moved just enough to make a child believe she was almost real.

Carry-All Action Playsets

With four other brothers to keep busy, Mom and Dad scored big with all of us when they brought home the Carry-All Action Playsets by Marx. These kept us entertained, and probably more importantly, quiet for hours.

You had to be careful with the pivot joints and mounting points, but other than that, these playsets could take a lot of abuse. I had Fort Apache, and one of my younger brothers had the Fighting Knights set.

Surprisingly, my Marine sergeant dad did not get us the Army Men set, but it did not matter much. No matter which one you had, these Carry-All playsets brought hours and hours of fun.

Slinky

The Slinky was just a coil of metal, but once you put it at the top of the stairs, it became magic. It could walk, stretch, flop, twist, and occasionally tangle itself into something no child on earth could ever fully fix.

Invented by accident in the 1940s, the Slinky became one of those toys almost every kid knew. You did not need batteries, a screen, or instructions. You just needed stairs, patience, and maybe a little luck.

And who can forget the jingle? “It’s Slinky, it’s Slinky…” Once that got in your head, it stayed there.

Did you have a Slinky? And did yours actually make it all the way down the stairs?

Who had a Secret Sam?

With all it could do, there were still many other toys I wanted more. I remember seeing the commercials and thinking it looked impressive, but I wasn’t sure it would live up to the way it looked on TV.

Secret Sam was a Topper Toys spy set from the mid-1960s, right when James Bond, The Man from U.N.C.L.E., and secret-agent gadgets were everywhere. The big item was the Secret Sam Attaché Case, a black briefcase that hid a toy gun setup inside. It could be used as a pistol, converted into a rifle, fitted with a silencer, and even fired from inside the case. Some versions also had a message missile and a small working camera.

So did it live up to expectations? Probably yes if you were deep into spy play and had a good imagination. But if you expected it to work exactly like a TV spy gadget, maybe not. Like a lot of toys from that era, the commercial did most of the heavy lifting.

Looking back, Secret Sam was the kind of toy that looked incredible under the Christmas tree, but the real fun depended on how much secret-agent adventure you could create around it.

Speedline Race Cars: The Hot Wheels Rival

Many of you asked about these when I posted the Hot Wheels advertisement. So now I have to ask: which did you have? Hot Wheels, Matchbox, Speedline, or all of them?

Speedline race cars were part of that late-19660s toy-car boom, when every company wanted a piece of the racing action. Hot Wheels had the orange track and wild colors, Matchbox had the more realistic little cars, and Speedline tried to get into the race with its own fast-looking cars and track sets.

They never became as famous as Hot Wheels, but that’s what makes them fun to remember. Some kids had the big names. Some had the off-brand or lesser-known racers. And honestly, when you were on the floor setting up races, it didn’t always matter what brand was stamped underneath. If the car was fast, it made the lineup.

For a lot of us, these little cars were more than toys. They were races across the living room, arguments over whose car won, and the beginning of a car collection before we even knew we were collecting.

So which ones were in your house?

Suzy Cute and Louis Armstrong: Yes, This Really Happened

The Suzy Cute doll commercial is one of those 1960s toy ads that makes you stop and say, “Wait, is that really Louis Armstrong?”

Yes, it is.

The commercial was for Topper Toys’ Suzy Cute doll, part of the company’s Suzy line. After Armstrong’s huge 1964 hit “Hello, Dolly!”, Topper’s Henry Orenstein apparently thought, “Who better to sell a doll than the man singing about Dolly?” Armstrong filmed and recorded the spot on January 6, 1965, shortly after returning from a major overseas tour.

The ad has Armstrong singing and performing with a group of little girls while promoting the doll. What makes it so charming, and a little surreal, is that Armstrong does not phone it in. The Louis Armstrong House Museum notes that even the full unused take of the jingle shows him treating it seriously, scatting, encouraging the band, and even playing trumpet during the extended recording.

That is what makes the commercial so memorable today. It is not just a toy ad. It is one of the greatest jazz legends of all time giving full Louis Armstrong energy to a tiny baby doll commercial.

Only in the 1960s could a toy company say, “Let’s get Satchmo to sell Suzy Cute,” and somehow make it happen.

Whenever I saw the Barbie Cut ’n Curl commercial as a kid, I always wondered if it really worked as smoothly as it looked on TV.

The idea was great: give Barbie a haircut, style her hair, curl it, and somehow keep the fun going without ruining the doll forever. Of course, commercials always made these toys look effortless. At home, I’m guessing it depended on patience, steady hands, and whether Barbie’s hair ended up looking salon-ready or like she had just lost a fight with a brush.

But here’s what I really want to know: Did you have Barbie Cut ’n Curl? Did it actually work the way the commercial showed?

And even better, did any of you start by cutting and styling Barbie’s hair and later end up becoming a hair stylist, barber, or working in cosmetology? Sometimes those childhood toys really did point us toward what we’d do later in life.

Probably no toy gave me more joy than Hot Wheels.

It was great the first day you got the track, but the fun didn’t stop there. A new car didn’t cost all that much, even for a kid, and suddenly the whole race changed. One new car meant new matchups, new winners, new arguments, and another reason to reset the track and try again.

Hot Wheels were introduced by Mattel in 1968, created to compete with Matchbox, but they had a completely different attitude. Matchbox cars looked more like regular cars you’d see on the road. Hot Wheels looked like something a kid dreamed up: wild colors, big wheels, racing stripes, spoilers, flames, and hot rod styling. The first line is remembered as the “Original 16” or “Sweet 16.”

And they were fast. That was the magic. Mattel built them with low-friction wheels and axles, wider hard-plastic tires, and a suspension design that helped them fly down those orange plastic tracks smoother than other little cars of the time. The Strong National Museum of Play notes that Mattel engineers wanted them to “zoom,” using thick plastic mag wheels, minimal-friction axles, and torsion-bar suspension.

Then came the tracks. If you got a new setup, like the one with the Super Charger, it worked with the track you already had. That was the genius of it. You didn’t have to start over. You just added on. A curve here, a loop there, a launcher, a jump, and suddenly your living room floor became Daytona, Indy, and a demolition derby all at once.

Looking back, Hot Wheels were a great value because every piece made the whole thing better. One car could change the race. One track set could change the whole afternoon. And for a kid, that little orange track and one fast car were enough to make the whole room feel like a speedway.